Ralleye dash with column shift?

[WanaBa442]

Thinking aboot switching the granny speedo out for a rally dash in the 78 Cutlass.
A few questions for the more knowledgeable folks regarding a few details.
1. "any cluster will work" seems to be the standard answer, however the 78 is a column shift car.
A lot of the dashes I see have the block off plate for the shift indicator. Can the indicator be swapped from a granny speedo to a rally dash?

2. Aside from adding the sending units for oil, and temp, is there a speedo drive cable difference from early to say later 82+ units?
3. To run the rally tachometer, I'd need to add the tach wire with resistor also?

Thanks in advance.

 

[69hurstolds]

Indicator for column shift with RP is the same with console or column shift if it had an indicator, but 83/84 H/O is the only ones I think had the indicator with console. It's a bit different than your granny speedo. I believe the cable may be a different length and takes a different path than the column shift indicator.

Either way, there's a cable/clip deal that clips on the back of the column shift barrel. This rotates as you shift the gears, and then pulls against a spring to move the indicator pointer to show the gear you're in. The shifter location doesn't matter. It's the same if you have gages or not. But it's just different parts doing it. I haven't looked that up or researched it, because most of the time, people don't leave their shifter on the column when switching to the rally pack.

You'd be further ahead if you could find a indicator plate with the tach. I think you may could even get a decal for the blank spot, but not sure of that. IIRC, most of the indicator cable support stuff is in the tach even though it doesn't use an indicator.

 

[L92 OLDS]

Thinking aboot switching the granny speedo out for a rally dash in the 78 Cutlass.
A few questions for the more knowledgeable folks regarding a few details.
1. "any cluster will work" seems to be the standard answer, however the 78 is a column shift car.
A lot of the dashes I see have the block off plate for the shift indicator. Can the indicator be swapped from a granny speedo to a rally dash?

2. Aside from adding the sending units for oil, and temp, is there a speedo drive cable difference from early to say later 82+ units?
3. To run the rally tachometer, I'd need to add the tach wire with resistor also?

Thanks in advance.

Yes, you can swap the rallye cluster in no problem. Some column shift G bodies were equipped this way from the factory.
The speedo cable to my knowledge is the same throughout the years and shouldn't be a problem.
The Monte Carlo's had the capacitor / filter for the tachometer but Cutlass didn't. Yes, you need to run the extra tach wire.

Here's a couple of helpful links.

Gauge cluster removal: http://tech.oldsgmail.com/eint_cluster.php

Rally Pack Conversion: http://tech.oldsgmail.com/eint_rallye_swap.php


Other than the Hurst Olds, all floor console cars had a blank PRNDL plate in the rallye cluster.
You can change this plate to a 3, 4 speed or the H/O PRNDL which was slightly different.

If you need a 78' cluster I think I have a few good ones laying around. I also have various PRNDL indicator plates (blanks, 3 or 4 speed). PM me if interested.

 

[81cutlass]

My 81 had the sweep speedometer and I found a 86 Brougham column shift with a rally pack.

I just swapped a few wires using the instructions from the oldsgmail site and it went well.

Speedometer cable was the same.